There are too few times in life that stand alone and above all others, days that will never be forgotten. This was one of those days, a day when on a hike, I became my children’s Hero. This event happened the first summer after moving to the mountains of Colorado.

Wanting to enjoy the beauty of the mountains, my wife and I planned a day hike to the Brown’s Creek waterfall. The kids were excited, a day hike, especially a day spent with Dad (not enough of those as I l look back).

Our hike would take us up the Brown’s Creek trail and after about three miles the waterfall would be on our left. Then the trail took us through a beautiful grass land and across the creek (小溪) a couple of times. We decided to turn back before reaching the waterfalls. While crossing the creek by walking on a downed tree trunk, our little Izzie fell into the creek and immediately started moving up and down in the water.

Immediately, I jumped into the river. I managed to grab her and push her to the river bank. But now, I was the one in need of being rescued. I thought this might be the end and I wasn’t sure if I could hold on. Then, I heard the familiar voice of the love of my life, my wife’s voice. She shouted something like- Stand Up! With the last bit of strength I could gather, I stood, and walked out of the raging river. The kids showed little concern for my well being, for they were attending Izzie, now safe in their arms. But I did hear one of the kids say: Thanks Dad, for saving Izzie. You are our Hero!

London KidZania：Where all work is all play

    "So what grown-up job do you want to try at KidZania?" I asked my 4-year-old daughter, Kitty, over breakfast.

    "Tooth fairy! Mom," she answered, as she headed for the front door.

    KidZania is a role-playing theme park where children get to dress up and try out different jobs. On arrival they are offered 50 kidZos (money used in the park only), and they can earn more by "working". They can spend kidZos on training for certain roles. At the end, they can spend their money at the KidZania department store.

    I was worried that Kitty would be too young for the concept（概念）of jobs, but as soon as we entered KidZania, her eyes widened, and so did her interests, just like almost every kid before and since—she wanted to be a firefighter!

    Kitty paid the lady in charge of the firefighters eight kidZos for trainging, wore a yellow hat and a firefighter coat and sat with three children to watch a video about the basics of fire safety. This kind of education is at the heart of KidZania. Besides information about specific jobs, they learn communication, the value of money and responsibility. Just as the video ended, an emergency bell rang. There was a fire on the other side of the square, the grown-up in charge told the kids, and firefighters were needed.

    The team got on the tiny fire truck and rushed to the disaster. A hotel was on fire （smoke and clever lighting）and our little firefighters had to put it out by spraying it with real water… What fun!

    After saving KidZania from fire, she also tried supermarket clerk, nurse, and flight attendant the rest of time. In the end, Kitty had 60 kidZos left. She cashed in her hard-earned money for a tiny toy.

    "What job do you want to do when you grow up?' I asked again after we had left. "Fairy firefighter," she responded.

Ron is ten years old. He loves to watch TV. But for one full year he did not watch TV at all. What was the reason? Ron’s parents said they would give him $ 600 if he didnˈt watch TV for a year. 

Ronˈs parents thought he watched too much TV. One day his mother saw a newspaper story about a boy who didnˈt watch TV for a year. She showed the story to Ron. Ron liked the idea. He turned off the TV right away, and said, "It doesnˈt bother me not to watch TV. I just want the money." 
    At first, Ronˈs parents were very happy. Ron read books and newspapers, played outside, played computer games, and played cards with his mother. But after some time, he got bored. Every morning, he asked his parents, "What are we doing tonight?" Sometimes his mother and father wished he would watch TV just for one evening. Ron always said, "No, it would cost me money!"
      Finally the year was over. Then Ron started watching his favorite TV shows all day long again. Ron got the money from his parents. What does he plan to do with the $ 600? "I want to buy myself a TV set!" he said.

A new study has found evidence of aggressive（攻击性的）behavior in children who drink four or more servings of soft drinks every day. Information for the study came from the mothers of 3,000 5-year-olds. Researchers asked the women to keep a record of how many servings of soft drinks their children drank over a two-month period. They were also asked to complete a checklist of their children’s behavior.

    The researchers have found that 43 percent of the children drink at least one daily serving of soda, and 4 percent of the youngsters have even four or more sodas to drink every day.

    Shakira Suglia, a famous expert, says they’ve found that children who drink the most soda are more than twice as likely as those who drink no soda to show signs of aggression.

    “For the children who consume four or more soft drinks per day, we see more withdrawn behaviors, which make them hard to get along well with others.”

    The aggressive behaviors include destroying possessions belonging to others, taking part in fights and physically attacking people.

    The researchers have determined the link after considering factors like the child’s age and sex. They have also considered other possible influence, such as whether the boys and girls are eating sweets or giving fruit drinks on a normal day. In addition, the researchers have examined parenting styles and other social conditions that may be taking place in the home.

    Researches are trying to find why young children who drink a lot of soda have behavior problems. An ingredient often found in soft drinks is caffeine, which helps to make people feel energetic. Doctor Suglia suggests that caffeine could cause the 5-year-olds to be more aggressive. Earlier studies of adults have found the highest sugar levels in those who carry weapons（武器）and show signs of negative social behavior.

Learning a new language that's not your mother tongue can be real hard. A school in Chengdu, China, has made national news headlines for its creative way of teaching its students English with mahjong tiles（牌）.

    Mahjong is a traditional Chinese card game, which is usually played with four players and involves 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols（符号）.Many Chinese children pick up on how to play mahjong from their parents from a young age, simply by watching the adults playing rounds of the game.

    But the mahjong sets used at Jitou Middle School are different and so is the objective（目标）.The "English Mahjong" was modified（调整）by the school's headmaster Tian Jingyun who replaced the original characters with English letters and numbering of each alphabet.

    The game begins with messed-up letters. As each student takes their turn in a clockwise manner, Just like traditional mahjong, all four students must make up words with the tiles they have on hand, writing them down in their notebooks. But that's where the similarity to Scrabble（拼字游戏）ends. The winner of the game is the student who makes the highest numbers of words, and uses them to make up a sentence or a story. Not easy!

    Besides mahjong, the school also has poker cards and checkers with English letters on them. All these Tian's way make learning English a fun exercise for the students.

    Since news broke, netizens have praised Tian for his devotion to teaching his students and his ability to think out of the box.

B

I got into the teaching profession by choice. I was then in 9th grade, when my mathematics teacher asked me to take a class for a few students to whom the subject seemed difficult. And believe me, I enjoyed the teaching. I never knew teaching would be so interesting. I loved my freshmen and was delighted to teach my so-called students who came up with lots of good questions.

After my post graduation, I worked as a software developer with a public sector(部门) in Bangalore for a few years. But I realized that no job could provide me the satisfaction that I experienced while teaching and training. In fact, I feel it was a timely realization for me to choose the teaching profession. I applied to a few colleges, and finally I was chosen as a “Lecturer”, and I had to lecture graduate and post-graduate students in a college.

On the first day, I was nervous thinking that I had to teach the senior classes. But now I can say that taking lectures was one of the best experiences of my life. I was a Computer Science and Information Technology Lecturer, but I tried to help my students with subjects that were not within my domain(范围). It was a new feeling to me every morning before going to the classes. I used to feel energized and excited thinking that the class would be lit up with bright faces to greet me, “Good morning, Madam”.

To me each day was a new beginning, with new feelings, new experiences and new queries(疑问). I loved to explore their young minds, read their inquisitive faces when a particular topic seemed tough. It was very challenging to motivate them to take part in the classroom, think critically, question and also respect others’ point of view. Though few things never seemed easy, it was very exciting to assure them that they really can. That is the reason, I love to teach.

With multi-identifies m modern society, women are not only mothers and wives who take care of their families, but also doctors, scientists and teachers. To encourage more young women to follow their dreams, we list four outstanding women of achievements in recent years.

Tu Youyou

pharmacologist (药理学家)

    Tu Youyou was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of a new therapy (疗法) against malaria. She is the first Chinese female scientist to win the Nobel Prize. Her studies were inspired by traditional Chinese medicine theories and she obtained Artemisinin (青蒿素) in 1972 after hundreds of failures.

    Li Na

    Professional tennis player

    In 2004, the 22-year-old Li became the first Chinese female player to win a WTA tour title. After winning nine WTA singles titles that includes two Grand Slam (大满贯) singles rifles at the 2011 French Open and 2014 Australian Open, she became the first and only Grand Siam singles champion from Asia.

    Dong Mingzhu

    President of Gree Electric Appliances Inc

    In 1990, she joined Gree when she was 36 years old and stared her career from tieing sales work. She became Gree's president in 2012. Her achievements helped China's home appliances industry to develop in an environmentally-friendly way.

    Yao Chen

     Actress

    Most people know Yao Chen through the 2006 comedy series, My Own Swordsman. In 2009 she started to use her Sins Weibo, which now has 79 million followers, to help people in need. In 2013

she became the first UNHCR (联合国难民署) goodwill ambassador in China. And at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2016, she was awarded the Crystal Award for artists who devote themselves to improving the state of the world.

A student worked part-time at a zoo. On his first day the zoo boss took him to the gorilla(大猩猩) cage. But it was empty. The gorilla was sick and couldn’t be there for the next week. The boss asked the student to put on a gorilla suit and sit in the cage. This way the people would at least have something to look at.

“It sounds interesting to me.” said the student.

The next day, he put on the gorilla suit and climbed into the cage. Soon there was a crowd of children coming to see the gorilla. “I need to do something to make them happy.” thought the student.

Then, he grabbed(抓) a rope in the cage and started to swing(摇摆). He swung higher and higher. All of a sudden, he flew out of his cage and dropped right into the lion’s cage!

He was so scared that he quickly got up and ran to the front of the cage. He shouted to the crowd, “Help me! I’m not a real gorilla!”

The lion jumped on his back. The student was sure he was going to die. Then he heard a voice from behind saying, “Shut up, or you’ll get us both fired.”

Travel has long been a huge part of my life. I am not your typical traveler. Over the last 46 years of travelling and the 65 countries I have visited, I have never pre-booked accommodation nor joined an organized tour. I like to limit myself to 7kg of luggage—enough room for the necessities and two radios.

I was in my early 30s when I decided I would buy radios from garage sales in Perth and give them to people I met during my travels who were down on their luck. Since then I've always packed one radio for personal use and one to give away. Collectively, I have parted with more than 300 radios over the last three decades, but there was one exchange that has really stuck with me.

In late 2006, I visited the scared(神圣的) Hindu city of Puri on the eastern coast of India. It was my third visit, and over five weeks, I explored the city's fabulous buildings, feasted on masaladosa, and indulged on cardamom tea and fresh home-baked biscuits at street stalls. One evening, after I had finished my swim and the sun was starting to set, I noticed a young man no older than 25. He sat on the beach holding a full bottle of alcohol tightly. “Are you fond of alcohol?” I asked him.

“No,” he replied. “I normally don't drink, but this is once in a lifetime,” he replied in broken English.

 “What's the celebration?” I asked.

He told me he was unemployed, depressed and disappointed with his life. He explained that the alcohol coupled with a jar of pills would solve his problems and that I was witnessing his final hour. Shocked by his confession, I sat with him and talked at length. We discussed the beauty of his beach, with its sunshine and white sand. We talked about the joy of good health when there were people living in the city suffering leprosy, elephantiasis, tuberculosis, malaria, to name a few. Finally, I told him he had his youth, mine had vanished at my 53 years of age, and from my position, I thought he had a lot to live for. All the while, my radio was playing quietly in the background. “Here, have my radio,” I offered. “It's a great companion no matter what.” I could see that he was quite shocked by the gift, but accepted it with gratitude.

By August 2014, I had long forgotten my encounter with this man and returned to Puri to escape Australian winter. Three weeks into my trip, I finished a swim at the beach and went to an internet café to send some emails to family and friends. I am not particularly tech-savvy so I asked the shop attendant to help with setting up the emails. As I typed away, I noticed some music coming from a grubby radio sitting on the front desk. When I approached the desk to pay, I asked the shop attendant, “Have you had your job long?”

“Since January 2007,” he explained with a smile. “I had the job advertised on my radio and came straight down.”

“Well, that is a fine radio,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “It was a gift from the Australian gods.”

This was the same man I had met on the beach all those years ago and while he didn't recognize me, this comment caused the memories to flood back. I didn't remind him that it was me who gave him the radio, but I couldn't help but smile to think how far they had both come.

I paid him, then wandered down the street and bought myself a cardamom sweet tea and some biscuits to celebrate.

D

Raised by a single mother in Hartford, Fred Wright struggled with behavioral problems and was forced to move from one school to another. He even reached a point where he felt like he had nothing to live for.

“I was walking around with a lot on my shoulders,” he said. “I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t care about life anymore.” But all that started to change when Wright met Patricia Kelly.

“I was seven when I met Mrs Kelly. I wasn’t used to strictness. I wasn’t used to hearing the word ‘no’,” said Wright, now 17.

Kelly, a former soldier and an equestrian(骑手), took Wright under her wing and helped him find hope in an unlikely place—on a horse.

“Wright was like a round peg（钉子）that everybody kept trying to squeeze into a square hole,” Kelly said. “He was hurting. He needed a place where he could express himself. The riding field became that place for him. ”

For the last 30 years, Kelly has helped children stay on the right track through her nonprofit, Ebony Horsewomen. The program offers horseback riding lessons and teaches animal science to more than 300 young people a year. By exposing those children to horsemanship, Kelly aims to give them an alternative to the streets and an opportunity to turn their lives around.

“We use horses as a hook to create pride, esteem and healing,” said Kelly, 66. “They learn that they have ability. They just have to unlock it.”

“When you teach a child to ride a horse, they learn they are the center of their environment,” said Kelly. “Once they make that connection, they can change what happens in school, at home and in the community.”